Directions

Pick meat from crabs and set aside.

Heat stock in a saucepan until simmering, then maintain at this heat.

Heat olive oil in a large pan and fry onion over medium heat until soft but not coloured.

Add the rice and stir over a high heat until grains are well coated in oil and warmed through. Add white wine and stir until most of the liquid has been absorbed. Reduce heat to medium, add stock, a ladleful at a time, stirring constantly and allowing each ladleful to be absorbed before adding the next.

Continue until rice is tender, with a slight bite, and has a creamy consistency (about 20 minutes).

Add a final ladle or 2 of stock, preserved lemon, crabmeat, butter, parmesan (if using), salt (remembering that the butter, crab and preserved lemon are all salty) and pepper and beat vigorously with a wooden spoon until all the butter is incorporated and the crab has broken up into thin wisps. The finished risotto should be quite soupy, the Venetians call it all'onde (wave-like).

Notes: You can use other types of crabs for this recipe, or 300g fresh crabmeat if you don't want to pick your own. Vialone nano is the preferred rice in the Veneto, where this soupy style of risotto is most popular, use arborio or carnaroli rice if it isn't available.

Reviews

Most Helpful

We thought this was restaurant qulity. It was simple but so delicious. I used 4 blue swimmer (manna) crabs and chose to leave the meat a little chunky as we work to hard picking it to not see it ;-) I had arborio rice on hand, used the parmesan and don't think I had quite two tablespoons of chives (but feel that didn't matter). I have had this recipe stashed away to make for such a long time and wonder why I haven't made it before.

I made this with king crab and my lemon was simply soaked in hot water and salt for an hour. I only used the zest and the pulp and juice from the lemon, but it was a very good batch of risotto. I don't like mine soupy, so I cooked it like they do in southern Italy. Great stuff.